Project 1: Gender, Work, and Family Dynamics of Adult Childrens Time Transfers to Their Widowed Elderly Parents: An Analysis of Married Dyads This project examines how married adult childrens gender, employment, and family dynamics affect the amounts of ADL and IADL time transferred to their widowed parents using data from the recently released 2006 Health and Retirement Study. It is hypothesized that the labor force structure, kin hierarchy, and inter-generational resource competition all play a role in married adult childrens care-giving behaviors. Econometrics analysis indicates that adult children with higher wage rates and longer weekly work hours provide less time to parents. There is no indication that wage rates and work hours influence sons and daughters provision of support differently. While the transfers of siblings may substitute for adult children in family care-giving practices , assistance provided by the spouses of adult children to the parents complement, but do not replace, adult childrens transfers. Adult children take the needs of their aging spouses and parents into consideration when they allocate transfer resources. For future study, a topic to be explored is how adult children adjust their transfer strategies over time as they themselves experience major life course transitions including retirement, marital dissolution, and health deterioration. Project 2: Assessing Elders Health and Insurance Status: The Effects of Race and Marriage The unprecedented trend in demographic aging and the unmet need in health insurance coverage have a profound impact on the medical-care service utilization and quality of life of U.S. elderly. Although population age 65 and above are covered by Medicare, identifying vulnerable groups with elevated health-care needs yet unable to acquire additional insurance is important for the purpose of improving contemporary healthcare policy. Using the 2006 Health and Retirement Study, this project examines how elders race and marital status affects their health and additional insurance acquisition. Outcomes of self-rated health, signing up for a Medicare prescription plan, being covered by Medicaid, having any private insurance, and having long-term care coverage, are investigated. Factors of socio-demographic characteristics, economic constraints, and social support, are included in the regression models for statistical control. Holding key variables constant, race and marital status were significantly associated with elders health and insurance status. African American elders were less likely than Whites to have good health (p<.01). Minority seniors also have higher propensities than Whites to be covered by Medicaid, and have lower likelihoods to acquire private health insurance and long-term care plans (p<.001). Marriage has a beneficial effect on elders health status and access to health insurances. Divorce and widowhood provide a different dynamic in shaping later-life health-care strategies and therefore, influencing insurance possession. Policy recommendations include implementing racial-specific health interventions, providing insurance knowledge and participation incentives, and educational programs helping minority elders to identify the most useful insurance plans, are discussed in the study.